John T. Reed’s blog about military matters

Copyright 2015 John T. Reed Here are some things I posted on Facebook about the first female rangers about to graduate from U.S. Army Ranger School. Today’s paper has a photo of one of the two West Point grad women in ranger school. I was almost killed once in ranger school as I related in my web article about it. Today’s photo by Nick Tomecek of the Associated Press, shows a female ranger at the precise spot and doing the precise thing that almost got me killed. http://www.nytimes.com/…/women-in-army-ranger-school-move-a… She is crossing the Yellow River in the swamp phase of ranger...

Copyright John T. Reed This morning, I was watching Tim Russert’s Meet the Press program when he said one of his next guests was going to be “Jack Reed, a West Point graduate former airborne ranger.” As explained elsewhere at my military Web site, I am a West Point graduate. I was also a paratrooper (airborne) and I graduated from U.S. Army Ranger School. As you can see at my home page, my name is John T. “Jack” Reed. Jack is the standard nickname for John. Astonishingly to me, many people are not aware of that. For those who still doubt...

Selfless warriors When I was at West Point from 1964 to 1968 and in the Army from 1968 to 1972, we regarded ourselves as “cadets” or “army officers.” That is, if you asked me what I did for a living in, say, 1970, I would say, “I’m an Army officer.” ‘I’m a soldier’ Back in the late 60s, one of my West Point classmates announced that he had begun to answer that question with the phrase, “I’m a soldier.” I reacted sharply saying it was melodramatic and self-conscious. When people ask what you do they are not interested in any...

Copyright John T. Reed You often read about a guy who is described as “the most decorated soldier in the Korean War” or some such. I may be the least decorated officer of the Vietnam war. So in that sense, my qualifications to write about medals may be suspect. But I am going to write about them anyway. If there is an error or omission in this article, tell me about it. I will investigate and, if I find that you are right, I will correct it, apologize if appropriate, and give you credit for bringing it to my attention....

Copyright by John T. Reed Craig Mullaney graduated from West Point in 2000 and did a tour in Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004. He was an infantry platoon leader for most of it and an adjutant (think human resources) at battalion headquarters for the rest of it. I heard him speak to a group of about 20 members of the Marines Memorial Club in San Francisco on May 5, 2009. (Veterans of all U.S. services can be members of the Marines Memorial Club in San Francisco. I initially joined because my wife wanted to hold her retirement party there, but...